By Sean Carey,
How quickly can you earn 1 million Gamerscore? Back in the early days of Xbox achievements, it seemed almost impossible. Now with the influx of easy title updates and quick completions, one TA member aims to find out and shine a spotlight on how easy a once unfathomable achievement has become.
If you're reading this, you probably already know about the current state of the Xbox achievement system. There have always been publishers who have released easy games and quick completions, but ever since the door was opened for easy title updates worth 1,000G a pop, we've seen an influx of easy Gamerscore and developers cleverly skirting around Microsoft's rules to offer more Gamerscore in their games. The whole debate around these title updates and other controversies (see Aabs Animals, Cruz Brothers, One Step After Fall, Eastasiasoft, and more recently, Ratalaika Games) has caused a strong divide in the community between those who welcome the easy Gs and others who believe the achievement system is circling the drain and that nobody is actually 'achieving' anything with these updates.One TA member who is firmly in the latter camp is Martel18, who is currently attempting a 1 million Gamerscore speed run, which can be watched live over on Twitch. In just six days, Martel18 — using the Gamertag BabyGamersSuck — has unlocked 3,766 achievements worth a total of 387,135 Gamerscore (accurate at the time of writing). So why are they doing this? According to Martel18, the desire was born out of curiosity.
"With the floodgates opening on easy 1,000G games and title updates, I was curious about the amount of score someone could put up in a day, week, or month and how fast they could reach a million," Martel18 said. "After the most recent account to do it in six months was set to 'No Tracking' for egregious account sharing, that solidified my decision to do it, solo, of course."
Earning 1 million Gamerscore was once considered a near-impossible task by many back in the day. It took the first 'Gamerscore millionaire,' Stallion83, years to achieve such a feat, but thanks to the flood of quick completions, 1,000G title updates, and other easy achievement titles, 1 million Gamerscore can be earned relatively quickly. Gamerscore is in such easy abundance these days that on the first day of Martel18's speed run attempt, they earned a quarter of a million Gamerscore.
"I wasn't initially planning on doing 245,000G on the first day, but a few days before starting my endeavour, Shadow Kisuragi pointed out that the daily record of just over 213,000G was set by LausDomini back in September 2021, on an account with 1,000,000G to his credit," Martel18 said. "I dug deep into the Xitilon/Desert Water/Whoever is publishing what now catalogues for those easy 2k-5k games. I also pinned groups of sub-10-minute games to pop off quickly and another group of RB-skip visual novels for when I needed a bit of a break.
"I had Grounded loaded up, waiting for midnight to come and launch the save file for that instant 2,400G start, then I put on Aabs Animals to idle while I speedran signing up on TA since you can't sign up with 0G beforehand."
Of course, while 245,000G may come quicker these days, earning that much Gamerscore in just 24 hours is a real test of endurance and a commendable feat. Martel18 said they were "wide awake and coherent" all day, thanks to already having to flip their sleep schedule due to work commitments and "some ADHD hyperfocus." Martel18 even went as far as to meal prep for the first day so they had some decent meals to eat instead of just junk food.
Interestingly just a few days after starting the run, Martel18 earned so much Gamerscore from quick completions in such a short amount of time on the BabyGamersSuck account that Microsoft struck them with a ban, despite streaming everything for proof. Microsoft, unable to fathom that Gamerscore could be earned this quickly, concluded that BabyGamersSuck had been using unauthorised software to unlock achievements. "If that doesn't tell you just how broken the system is currently, I don't know what does," Martel18 said. Luckily the account has now been unbanned, and the speedrun can continue.
The rest of the speedrun is fully mapped out with a spreadsheet that features 772 games, split into publishers with a general timing tab. Around 60% of these games were previously owned, and they've bought the rest since then, utilising sales and $400 worth of Xbox gift cards earned from Microsoft Rewards Points. Martel18 tells us they are avoiding games with completion estimates over four hours but will be making exceptions for games they enjoy and speed through, such as "Unicorn Princess, Goldeneye, My Little Riding Champion, Metal: Hellsinger, Horse Club Adventures 1+2, Microsoft Games on my phone, My Horse and Me 2, and Minecraft." Martel18 has 21 days off in April and is aiming to get 600,000 of the 1 million Gamerscore target done this month.
So why is Martel18 putting themselves forward for such a gruelling task? What is the message they're trying to send? Well, Martel18 says they'd love to see Microsoft implement a policy change with the Xbox achievement system as things are starting to get out of hand.
"It was okay at first, having a few easy games to cleanse the palate after grinding longer or harder games for a while," Martel18 said. "Ever since that infamous Xitilon debacle, it's just been too much. We shouldn't be adding 1,000G every six months for content that is already there. We shouldn't be dumbing down achievements for sales.
"If your game has ten worlds with ten levels each, there should be achievements for reaching the end and then some miscellaneous achievements in between. Get creative with them — jumping 150 times in a playthrough isn't an achievement unless there's something special you have to do to jump. Way too many games hand you 100% by the quarter mark in the game.
"I'm hoping maybe for a policy change from Microsoft. The 5,000G limit and title update score limit is meant for games to keep adding content, not to add Gamerscore for something that was already there. I'm not saying no title updates, but a reduction in the cap. Maybe 250G every six months. Bigger budget games can always apply for an exception — maybe a policy that makes it mandatory to have achievements for at least finishing the story in a game."
You can follow Martel18's progress here on TA (BabyGamersSuck) and on Twitch. Martel18 says they are also donating $3 for every game completed during the speedrun to children's charity Child's Play.
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